Guider

Kranky;
2011

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On their second full-length, Chicago's Disappears have gotten more Zen. Where their mix of Velvet Underground chug and krautrock groove on 2010 debut Lux was pretty melodic, on Guider they're more interested in being hypnotic. They've embraced repetition, using it as an end of its own rather than a way to find hooks. They do offer lots to latch onto-- memorable riffs abound, and revving tempos propel the tunes like a car stuck in 5th gear. But they sound more into straight lines than catchy arcs, more into the moment than what came before.

The recording details confirm that immediacy. According to Kranky's press release, all but one track is a first take. In fact, Disappears literally erased the past, recording over tapes originally used for the Lux sessions. Still, for an album so in-the-moment and so short-- it lasts only 30 minutes, and half is taken up by closer "Revisiting"-- Guider doesn't fly by. All the repetition distorts the sense of time, as if each groove had begun before tape rolled and continued to churn past the end.

That aligns Disappears with another band that can turn one riff into an eternal swing, San Francisco's Wooden Shjips. Both also draw openly on classic influences-- Disappears' twitter bio is "Music for Record Collectors"-- and this time around the common denominator is Spacemen 3. That group's rumbling bass, reflective guitar, and flattened vocals spring up in the quiet/loud drama of "Not Romantic", the stair-climbing "Superstition", and the shivering riffs of "Halo". But Spacemen 3 weren't unique-- they borrowed as much from Suicide and the MC5 as Disappears borrow from them-- and their influence on Guider produces something that can't simply be called a copy.

A more valid criticism would be that heavy influence makes Guider less able to transcend genre than the more openly catchy Lux. For me, the band makes up for that deficit in sheer magnetic energy, which isn't easy to wrangle from such a well-worn style. That energy is plentiful enough that Disappears may yet make a record that captures both true believers and recent converts equally.